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Bangor-Brewer

Veterans Day parade

A Veterans Day parade is planned for 10:15 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 11. The parade will form at 9:30 a.m. in the Brewer Shopping Plaza, Wilson Street. Veterans, veterans groups, groups of descendants of veterans and those interested in participating are invited to join in the event.

Maine Gov. John Baldacci, the American Legion members, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Purple Heart veterans and others will lead off the parade at 10:15 a.m. The parade will proceed down Wilson Street, across the Chamberlain Bridge and down Bangor’s Main Street to the reviewing stand at the Broad Street square. A brief ceremony will take place at the reviewing stand. The parade will proceed to Exchange Street, where it will disband at approximately 11:30 a.m. The parade route is 1 1/2 miles long.

Bangor

Sacred music concert

The public is invited to join the Chamber Choir of St. John’s Parish, under the direction of Kevin Birch, for a concert series of rarely heard 20th century sacred music for organ and choir in Bangor, Lewiston, Boston and New Bedford, Mass. The Bangor concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, at St. John’s Catholic Church, 207 York St.

The concert will feature Gemma Coebergh, concert organist, of Haarlem, The Netherlands, with the Chamber Choir of St. John’s Catholic Church and soprano soloist, University of Maine voice professor Nancy Ogle, joining the two Maine concerts.

The four concerts will include organ and choral works of Dutch composers Hendrik Andriessen, Albert de Klerk, Jan Mul and Herman Strategier, as well as French composers Maurice Durufle and Gabriel Faure.

The concerts are sponsored by The Netherlands-America Foundation, the Bangor chapter of the American Guild of Organists, the Southeastern Massachusetts chapter of the American Guild of Organists, the St. John’s Organ Society and the Andriessen-de Klerk Foundation.

Admission is free, but donations will be appreciated.

Anah Shrine Keystone Kops dinner auction

The Anah Shrine Keystone Kops will hold their first annual dinner auction at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10, at the Spectacular Event Center.

The silent auction begins at 5:30 p.m., the dinner at 7 p.m. and the live auction at 8:30 p.m.

For information, call Carol Lackedy or Shawn Cowan, 848-7317 or 299-5186.

The donation for the dinner auction is $25 a person. Send checks to Keystone Kops, c/o Shawn Cowan, 3026 Route 2, Hermon, 04401.

The Keystone Kops are one of the most active fundraising units of the Anah Shrine, contributing to the 22 Shrine hospitals, which serve 123,000 children a year.

Art at the library

Maine artists Arlyss Becker of Lamoine and Kris Sader of Orono will be the featured artists during November in the Lecture Hall at Bangor Public Library.

Becker, who has studied and exhibited on both coasts of the United States, chose a literary theme for her exhibit, “Bookmarkings.” Inspired by the written word and many favorite books, Becker’s works include landscapes, abstracts and figurative works using a number of different materials.

Sader’s exhibit is “Other Natures.”

“I believe strongly in our link to nature and imagination and how these drive human existence. Art has the unique ability to take us there, whether by viewing or making,” Sader said. She has pioneered a nontoxic, environmentally friendly printmaking method.

An opening reception for the Becker and Sader exhibits will be held 4-7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 8.

In the library’s Stairwell Gallery, Diana Willette of Unity will show her monotypes and monoprint photos.

Concert a success

The Singing for Peace concert held at the Union Street Brick Church Oct. 21 raised $1,000 to support the efforts of the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine. The concert featured the music of Women With Wings, Sviata Duma-Balkan Trio, Voices for Peace and Women Rising.

Brewer

Day of prayer

The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church will be observed at 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12, at the Second Congregational Church of Brewer. A special worship service as it might be experienced by Christians in North Korea – no Bibles allowed – will be conducted.

Those who wish to participate should meet in the church parking lot and are advised to dress comfortably. Donations given at the event will be sent to Open Doors with Brother Andrew. For information, call Leigh at 989-7930.

Hampden

Bringing a friend

The Hampden Highlands United Methodist Church had a record attendance as it welcomed visitors on Oct. 22. Church members invited people to the worship service as part of a special Bring a Friend Sunday. The goal was to introduce people in the community without a church home to the services and programs offered by the 300-member congregation at 44 Kennebec Road.

“We’re very pleased with the number of people who came to check out what we had to offer,” said the Rev. Dr. Debra J. Hanson, pastor. “We’re going to invite them all back again and again. We hope many of these people will want to become part of the life of our church.”

Hermon

Girl Scout volunteers

Girl Scout volunteers are invited to 1Voice, a meeting format designed to give Girl Scout volunteers the information and resources needed for the upcoming year. The District 6 1Voice meeting will be held 6:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, at the Hermon High School, 2415 Route 2.

The agenda will include information on future events and opportunities for troops, age-level training for troop volunteers, and training for the 2007 Girl Scout cookie program. Time will be devoted to a district meeting, and delegates will hear a report from the board of directors, nominate delegates to the annual meeting and hear an update on the council realignment process.

The meeting format has been designed to pull together material from several meetings into a one-stop resource. Those who plan to attend should notify the Girl Scout office so enough handouts will be available. For information, call Dina Eccleston at (800) 464-3858 or e-mail webmaster@abnakigsc.org.

Orono

Lecture, book signing

The University Bookstore, located in the University of Maine’s Memorial Union, will host author Robert Klose for a lecture and book signing at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2, in Memorial Union’s Totman Lounge.

Klose is associate professor of biological sciences at University College in Bangor. He has written essays for the Christian Science Monitor for 20 years and has won four Maine Press Association awards for opinion writing. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Newsweek, Reader’s Digest and other magazines and literary journals.

Klose has two adopted sons from Russia and Ukraine, and one of his books, “Adopting Alyosha: A Single Man Finds a Son in Russia,” illustrates the adoption process.

Klose’s lecture will be about his latest book, “Small Worlds: Adopted Sons, Pet Piranhas and Other Mortal Concerns.” Klose will discuss his experiences – from living in Maine to the international adoption process of his two sons.

For information on the lecture and-or book signing, call Amanda Morang at 581-1700.

‘Wintertime’ production

The University of Maine School of Performing Arts Theater Division’s coming student production of “Wintertime” by Charles Mee is described as an uproariously funny postmodern comedy ranging in style from slapstick to philosophical.

Performances will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 3-4; and Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 9-11, and 2 p.m. Sundays, Nov. 5 and Nov. 12, in Hauck Auditorium. General admission is $8, but free for students with a MaineCard.

“Wintertime” is, by Mee’s own description, “a sweet, dreamy, romantic comedy from the world of ‘The Winter’s Tale’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard,’ and Moliere and Magritte.”

Director Tom Mikotowicz, professor of theater, said the cast of nine students and a recent UMaine graduate are doing a fine job mastering some demanding dialogue, foreign dialects and lengthy monologues that rival the forensic addresses in the plays of ancient Greek playwrights.

Mee is an emerging American playwright whose writing is “quite radical and does not conform to the methods of traditional playwrights who operate as if the script is sacrosanct and not to be tampered with by performing artists,” said Mikotowicz.

Mee also considers his works as outlines for the creativity of the production team. He has put his scripts on a Web site called “the (re)making project” for people to download and produce, copyright-free, and invites additions and adaptations to his ideas.

In all of his plays, Mee creates situations and characters that may make conventional theatergoers uneasy. Although there are lesbian, gay and radical feminist characters in his plays, as well as provocative situations, he does not write political plays that merely propel a specific liberal persuasion. Instead, Mee takes a larger, contextual view of the characters. In so doing, he points out the ills of the society in which they live and suffer.

“Wintertime” was written in 2002 and has been produced at many regional professional theaters throughout the country. It is about a dysfunctional family’s chance gathering at a summer camp in the middle of winter.

The show demands much effort from the students, including dialect work in French and Italian, said Mikotowicz. An additional accent spices up the dialogue, through the casting of two Danish exchange students at UMaine.

The play is recommended for mature audiences. Ticket information is available by calling 581-1755.